A secure element is a tamper-resistant device which is intended to be hosted in a machine like a mobile phone, a connected device, or any host machine requiring secure computing. A secure element may be removable like a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) or a secure memory card. A secure element is generally a hardware-based component. A secure element may be welded to its hosting machine. A secure element permanently associated with its host device is called embedded secure element. A secure element may contain an application intended to be called by the connected hosting machine or by a distant machine. A secure element may contain computing means (like cryptographic services) or a secure storage means intended to be used by the connected hosting machine.
A secure element can comprise several applications. To simplify access to applications, the principle of implicit selection has been defined. When an application is implicitly selected on a communication interface, an external device can send commands directly to the application, without to explicitly select the targeted application. For example, many deployed contactless readers in transport domain assume that the relevant application is already active and selected when starting a transaction with an application embedded in a secure element.
The GlobalPlatform Card specifications v2.2 defines the “Implicit Selection parameter” (tag ‘CF’ defined at § 11.1.7) allowing to declare an application as being implicitly selected for a contactless interface. Nevertheless, the GP 2.2—Amendment C v1.1.1 standard specifies that only one application can be installed with the “Implicit Selection parameter” for a communication interface.
It may happen that a user needs to have several applications of the same type in a secure element. For instance, when the user travels from city A to city B, he/she has to manually uninstall/unregister the current transport application corresponding to City A before installing the transport application relevant for accessing the urban transport network of City B with implicit selection settings. Such uninstall/install operations are long and may be complex. There are not convenient for a user.
There is a need to ease application management for applications needing to be implicitly selected and installed.